The Cage
by Jack Wong
Summary: Batman must confront his one rule in a mysterious fortified warehouse.


Robin and I arrive on the roof already knowing the situation – three cops have been kidnapped, and the man representing those responsible wants to talk to me personally.

Gordon always hates it when his men are used as bait, or bargaining chips, but it happens often. "Here," he says gruffly as we land, and hands me the phone. I take it and put my hand over it.

"Anything besides what's on the radio?"

Gordon shakes his head.

"Who is it?" I ask.

"Won't say, and you know what that means." I do; most of my more theatrical enemies are, well, more theatrical. They love to tell me exactly who is running things, right away.

I put the phone to my head. "Hello?"

"Batman?" he pauses. "Wow it is you, isn't it."

"What have you done with the policemen?" I ask.

"Oh they're safe," he says. "For now."

"What do you want?"

"We want to meet," he says.

"Who's we?"

He laughs. "Doesn't matter. I'll be waiting at the cage."

I squint. "What cage? Arkham? Blackgate?"

"How well do you know the city, Bats?"

I pause. "I'll be there in five minutes," I say, and he hangs up.

"The cage?" Gordon asks.

"I'll make sure your men get home." I shoot a grappling hook into the city. "Come on Robin, let's go."

'

"What is it?" Robin asks. "The cage, I mean?"

"There's a building in West Gotham," I say as we stop on a building to set coordinates. "It looks like a normal warehouse, but under the walls is a titanium mesh. Under that is a layer of lead."

"Sounds expensive," he says.

"It'd be more expensive to make something that could scan through it."

Robin pauses. "So you mean you've never…"

"I've seen what goes in and out," I say. "It's trash. Big garbage trucks full of something that doesn't show up as anything on the scans – no weapons, no people. I put surveillance up a while ago and haven't been back."

"Since when?"

I pause. "Two years, probably."

"Huh," he says.

"Robin, I need you to scout the perimeter."

He nods. "What, you're just going in?"

"I have to admit," I say, "I'm a little curious."

'

He's waiting there as I drop to the ground behind him. He's clean – no weapons visible to my equipment. And he's alone.

"Suarez," I say, and he spooks.

"Jesus," he says through the mask, "how'd you know it was me?"

"Voice recognition," I say. "I'm not playing a game here."

"…right," he says. "Well, we made it easy for you. No trap." Tommy Suarez, small-timer extraordinaire, smiles. He's got a long rap sheet, but it's nothing to be proud of – looks like a career henchman on paper. "No lock."

He's telling the truth – the door is open slightly.

"You want to know, don't you?" he says. "I know you do."

"What's the deal?" I ask. "With the cops."

"Spend five minutes in there," he says, "and we'll let them go."

I stare at the open door, and take a step. I do want to know. I definitely do. But something tells me that going inside will be a huge mistake – it might be Tommy's grin, which is huge. This is something that has been planned for years, I can tell – I can also tell that it wasn't his idea. But I trust him that there's no trap…

"You wanna save these cops or not?" he asks.

I take another step, then another, and my gait takes me closer to the door and then I push it open and enter.

It's a graveyard.

"Five minutes, Batman," Tommy says.

Cheap lights – fluorescent, bad grade. Certainly not a professional job doing whatever they're trying to do. I look at a gravestone, a glance, and then it turns into a stare.

"You've got your rule, right Bats?" Tommy's inside, still unarmed, still smiling. "You don't kill, right?"

I take my gaze to another tombstone. "This can't be…"

"Yeah, it is," Tommy says. "You think people get their skulls kicked in and walk away? You think internal injuries heal themselves?"

I look up at him, feeling weak.

"Batman, everyone buried here is someone you've killed."

"You're lying."

He laughs. "You can look it up in your database and cross-reference or whatever it is you do." Tommy looks at me, saddened by what this place represents but happy to see me suffer. And I am suffering.

Some of them I don't have to reference. There are photos next to each gravestone, and some I remember, like Eddie Chao – yes, I hit him with the pipe but…

But…

"Five minutes," Suarez says, and he walks out the door, leaving me alone.

The warehouse seems like it's endless – and there are graves covering every inch of the ground. John Baker Simon, organ failure – his lungs collapsed somehow. "Base," I say, and Alfred picks up. "I want you to run a name for me…" But I remember that one too. So vaguely – but he was working for Freeze, and I threw him one and a half stories down into a dumpster.

"Sir?" Alfred asks.

"Uh, never mind," I say. Five minutes. Jesus Christ.

I walk among the collateral damage, people I didn't care enough to get medical help for. The ambulances after a fight weren't all for hostages, I guess…

I stop.

Carrie Jane Thomas. The little girl that tried to shoot me, and I hit a little too hard. She flew across the room, and I went after her father. I couldn't say I was sorry, I didn't have time…

This can't be real.

But as I walk, aisle to aisle, every other dead brute is one I remember – every other grave contains someone I injured, maimed. But killed?

The photos, the cause of death…they set this up to maximize my feelings of guilt. I walk past a hundred tombstones and stop counting. And these are all deaths since the cage was built, at least the ones I can recall. No, stop, these aren't dead people…these are…this isn't real.

This can't be real.

I leave after ten minutes, and Tommy is gone. I hardly feel like chasing him. Robin swings down and I look at him – I must look bad.

"Damn Batman, what happened in there?"

"Nothing," I say, wishing it was true. "Nothing. Are the cops free?"

He nods. "I put a tracker on Suarez's car. The GCPD will get him."

I stare at the door. They didn't close it. They didn't lock it. This macabre museum is now open to the public.

And I can't have that.

"We have to block the entrance," I say.

"What?" Robin pauses. "What's in there?"

"Just help me gather some wood," I say.

"Batman…"

"WOOD!" I yell, and we scrounge the street for boards until we have enough to shut the cage, at least long enough for it to be demolished by Wayne Enterprises.

Robin can control his curiosity. And that's good, because some of the dead in there belong to his fists, and I'd rather not let him into the world I have just entered. We attach the planks to the entrance, tightly, and I start to walk away.

"Look, can you tell me now?" he asks.

I shake my head. "No," I say. "I can't do that to you." He stares, but I don't give in. "Let's go."

'

Our rounds that night go fairly uneventfully, but we do end up fighting a few small-timers. And I can't help but think of Chao, and the little girl, and all of the pictures and names.

And I lay off a little. I know how not to hurt people, how to take them down a little more gently. Robin notices. "What's the deal?" he asks on another rooftop.

"Things are different now," I say. "These people aren't just punching bags." I breathe in heavily. "We're going to do things a little cleaner from now on."

Robin stares. Maybe he can guess what was in there. But I don't ever, ever want him to know for sure.


End file.
